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Science

Observation of many-body dynamical localization

Yanliang Guo, Sudipta Dhar, Ang Yang, Zekai Chen, Hepeng Yao, Milena S. J. Horvath, Lei Ying, Manuele Landini, Hanns‐Christoph Nägerl

Published Aug 14, 2025• 14 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The quantum kicked rotor is a paradigmatic model system in quantum physics. As a driven quantum system, it features dynamical localization, specifically Anderson localization in momentum space. However, the interacting many-body kicked rotor is believed to break localization. Here, we present evidence for many-body dynamical localization for the Lieb-Liniger version of the many-body quantum kicked rotor. After some initial evolution, the momentum distribution of interacting quantum-degenerate bosonic atoms in one-dimensional geometry, kicked hundreds of times by means of a pulsed sinusoidal potential, stops spreading. Our results shed light on the boundary between the classical, chaotic world and the realm of quantum physics.

DOI
10.1126/science.adn8625

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The quantum kicked rotor is a paradigmatic model system in quantum physics. As a driven quantum system, it features dynamical localization, specifically Anderson localization in momentum space. However, the interacting many-body kicked rotor is believed to break localization. Here, we present evidence for many-body dynamical localization for the Lieb-Liniger version of the many-body quantum kicked rotor. After some initial evolution, the momentum distribution of interacting quantum-degenerate bosonic atoms in one-dimensional geometry, kicked hundreds of times by means of a pulsed sinusoidal potential, stops spreading. Our results shed light on the boundary between the classical, chaotic world and the realm of quantum physics.
The kicked rotor system is a textbook example of how classical and quantum dynamics can drastically differ. The energy of a classical particle confined to a ring and kicked periodically will increase linearly in time whereas in the quantum version the energy saturates after a finite number of kicks. The quantum system undergoes Anderson localization in angular-momentum space. Conventional wisdom says that in a many-particle system with short-range interactions the localization will be destroyed due to the coupling of widely separated momentum states. Here we provide evidence that for an interacting one-dimensional Bose gas, the Lieb-Liniger model, the dynamical localization can persist at least for an unexpectedly long time.
The quantum kicked rotor is well known to display dynamical localization in the noninteracting limit. In the interacting case, while the mean-field (Gross-Pitaevskii) approximation displays a destruction of dynamical localization, its fate remains debated beyond mean field. Here we study the kicked Lieb-Liniger model in the few-body limit. We show that for any interaction strength, two kicked interacting bosons always dynamically localize, in the sense that the energy of the system saturates at long times. However, contrary to the noninteracting limit, the momentum distribution $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Pi}}(k)$ of the bosons is not exponentially localized, but decays as C/k4\mathcal{C}/{k}^{4}C/k4, as expected for interacting quantum particles, with Tan's contact C\mathcal{C}C which remains finite at long times. We discuss how our results will impact the experimental study of kicked interacting bosons.
A periodically driven rotor is a prototypical model that exhibits a transition to chaos in the classical regime and dynamical localization (related to Anderson localization) in the quantum regime. In a recent work [Phys. Rev. B 94, 085120 (2016)], A. C. Keser et al. considered a many-body generalization of coupled quantum kicked rotors, and showed that in the special integrable linear case, dynamical localization survives interactions. By analogy with many-body localization, the phenomenon was dubbed dynamical many-body localization. In the present work, we study nonintegrable models of single and coupled quantum relativistic kicked rotors (QRKRs) that bridge the gap between the conventional quadratic rotors and the integrable linear models. For a single QRKR, we supplement the recent analysis of the angular-momentum-space dynamics with a study of the spin dynamics. Our analysis of two and three coupled QRKRs along with the proved localization in the many-body linear model indicate that dynamical localization exists in few-body systems. Moreover, the relation between QRKR and linear rotor models implies that dynamical many-body localization can exist in generic, nonintegrable many-body systems. And localization can generally result from a complicated interplay between Anderson mechanism and limiting integrability, since the many-body linear model is a high-angular-momentum limit of many-body QRKRs. We also analyze the dynamics of two coupled QRKRs in the highly unusual superballistic regime and find that the resonance conditions are relaxed due to interactions. Finally, we propose experimental realizations of the QRKR model in cold atoms in optical lattices.
The question of whether interactions can break dynamical localization in quantum kicked rotor systems has been the subject of a long-standing debate. Here, we introduce an extended mapping from the kicked Lieb-Liniger model to a high-dimensional lattice model and reveal universal features: on-site pseudorandomness and hybrid exponential-algebraic decay couplings with increasing momenta. We find that the exponent and the amplitude of the algebraic decay undergo a crossover as the interaction strength increases. This mapping uncovers the origin of dynamical localization and the interaction effect on the integrability of the system. An analysis of the generalized fractal dimension and level-spacing ratio supports these findings, highlighting the presence of near integrability and multifractality in different regions of parameter space. Our results offer an explanation for the occurrence of many-body dynamical localization, particularly in strongly correlated quantum gases, and are anticipated to generalize to systems of many particles.
Despite the periodic kicks, a linear kicked rotor (LKR) is an integrable and exactly solvable model in which the kinetic energy term is linear in momentum. It was recently shown that spatially interacting LKRs are also integrable, and results in dynamical localization in the corresponding quantum regime. Similar localized phases exist in other nonintegrable models such as the coupled relativistic kicked rotors. This work, using a two-body LKR, demonstrates two main results; first, it is shown that chaos can be induced in the integrable linear kicked rotor through interactions between the momenta of rotors. An analytical estimate of its Lyapunov exponent is obtained. Second, the quantum dynamics of this chaotic model, upon variation of kicking and interaction strengths, is shown to exhibit a variety of phases: classically induced localization, dynamical localization, subdiffusive, and diffusive phases. We point out the signatures of these phases from the perspective of entanglement production in this system. By defining an effective Hilbert space dimension, the entanglement growth rate can be understood using appropriate random matrix averages.
The quantum motion of NNN coupled kicked rotors is mapped to an interacting NNN-particle Anderson-Aubry-Andreˊéeˊ tight-binding problem supporting many-body localised (MBL) phases. Interactions in configuration space are known to be insufficient for destroying Anderson localisation in a system in the MBL phase. The mapping we establish here predicts that a similar effect takes place in momentum space and determines the quantum dynamics of the coupled kicked rotors. Due to the boundedness of the Floquet quasi-energy spectrum there exists limitations on the interacting lattice models that can be mapped to quantum kicked rotors; in particular, no extensive observable can be mapped in the thermodynamic limit.